


Personhood

by ckret2



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Venom (Comics)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien/Human Relationships, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Slimes In Jars, in the form of symby giving peter a long overdue What The Hell Hero? speech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22854832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: Venom is reluctantly teaming up with Spider-Man in order to rescue several hundred imprisoned symbiotes before they can be forced to act as unwilling weaponized slaves.Spider-Man is reluctantly teaming up with Venom in order to prevent several hundred alien weapons from being used against humans.And frankly, Venom's symbiote is sick and tired of Spider-Man's attitude toward its people.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 15
Kudos: 230
Collections: SYMBRUARY





	Personhood

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [@symbruary](symbruary.tumblr.com) Day 22: "hero". I came up with symby's speech like a week ago in the car while driving and I went oh heck, by the time I can type this up I'll have forgotten half of it. And then I forgot half of it.
> 
> you ever wanna just holler at Peter for repeatedly implicitly denying the personhood of symbiotes?

"Most evil corporate mad science labs have at least a _couple_ redeeming traits," Spider-Man said. "Potted plants. Clean floors. Funny cartoons taped on the office doors, something. But I hate _everything_ about this place." He was weaving back and forth behind Venom to see around them down the hall. "Can't _wait_ to get out of here."

"Neither can we," Venom grumbled. "Both to get away from the oppressive atmosphere... and the oppressive chatter."

"Oh, har har. As if you wouldn't be going stir-crazy in here if you didn't have a conversation partner. _I_ would be."

Loftily, Venom said, "We already _have_ a conversation partner."

"Right. I forgot. You're _already_ stir-crazy."

Venom turned around to shoot Spider-Man a dark look.

Spider-Man went on, "In fact, you passed 'stir' and went on to 'heavily blended' some time ago."

Venom shook their head and turned forward again.

Spider-Man peered down a dark hall as they passed, pausing to see if anything pinged on his spider-sense, then hurried to catch up to Venom. "So how much farther to the—what I _assume_ is going to be a giant room with hundreds of goos in green jars? It's always something like that."

"Not sure," Venom said. "We know it's this way," they pointed ahead, "but we can't tell exactly how far. The strength of the collective psychic signal my other is picking up could be impacted by how thick the walls are and the number of prisoners contributing to it?"

"'Prisoners'?" Spider-Man said, head jerking up. "You mean they're also keeping _people_ here, or—?" He cut himself off. "Oh. No, you're just talking about the slimes, aren't you."

Venom stopped walking so abruptly Spider-Man almost ran into his back. "Yes," they said sharply. "Yes, we're talking about the slimes. _Those_ prisoners. _Those_ people. The imprisoned _Klyntar_ people we're here to _save_."

Spider-Man was silent for a long moment, then went around Venom and kept walking. "Right, sure. I'm more concerned about making sure they don't get used against humans."

"Oh yes, of _course_ ," Venom said sarcastically, following Spider-Man uncomfortably closely. "As we _well_ know. You don't mind a whole facility of enslaved people as long as they aren't used against the people you _like_. What a big hero."

"'Enslaved people' is a stretch," Spider-Man snapped, "when 'being a living weapon' is their favorite national pastime. In fact, it's a stretch just to..." He huffed, leaving the sentence unfinished, and shook his head.

It was Venom's turn to fall silent. Venom's silence was more menacing.

"What?"

"Say it," Venom said. "We want to hear you say it, if that's what you really believe. Say that you think symbiotes aren't people."

Spider-Man didn't speak.

Venom sneered audibly. It was a wet sound. "In your heart, you know they are."

"In my heart, I know you'll try to beat me to a pulp before we can find the jar room if I say they aren't!" Spider-Man turned around, walking backwards as he spoke. "If you really wanna stretch the definition of ‘person’ to include a single-minded cocktail of horrible-impulse-enhancing obsessive _vengeance_ chemicals—"

"That's not what a symbiote is!" Venom roared. "They don't _do_ that!"

"Oh yeah, _Eddie?_ You sure? How many murders did you commit before you got that thing in your head?"

Venom demanded, "How many did I make _you_ commit?! Did these _obsessive vengeance chemicals_ make you do _anything_ you didn't want?"

"That d—" Spider-Man paused mid-step. "'I'?"

Venom closed the space between them, looming over Spider-Man, fangs snapping in his face as they snarled, "You KNOW that I'm a person! Maybe you didn't when you abandoned me, but you do now! Have been inside your head!"

Rather than backing away, Spider-Man froze, shoulders stiff, staring up at Venom.

"But you still talk about me—about my kind—like we're not. Like we're some kind of dumb fungus that controls your mind. We think you aren't _oblivious_ that we're people. Know you're not that stupid. You just don't want to _believe_ it. You want to believe _I'm_ not a person. Because as soon as you admit I am, you admit you took an alien to a planet where it knows nothing and no one, rejected it for being alive instead of a suit, and locked it up like a lab animal. You don't want to be _responsible_ for that. You don't want to have to look at yourself and admit that you kidnapped, imprisoned, and abandoned a person! So you keep telling yourself I'm not a person at all!"

Venom raised a hand and Spider-Man finally flinched back; but they just thumped it over their own chest. "But _am_ a person, Spider-Man. As long as you keep telling yourself I'm not, you're going to keep abandoning and hurting _more_ innocent people. People like _them_." Venom pointed down the hall. "Not asking you to make up for what you did. Telling you not to do it again. Telling you to _act_ like a hero for once. Act like _us_."

When Venom's rant ended, Spider-Man just stared up at them. After a moment, he shrugged jerkily, looking away down the hall where Venom had pointed. "Well—I—we were—I'm already here to get them out, aren't I?"

Venom glowered at him, daring him to say something else—question their credentials as heroes, perhaps—then, when he didn’t, they looked away with a grunt, stalking down the hall.

Spider-Man trailed meekly behind. After they'd passed a couple of halls, he asked, "You still in there, Eddie?"

"You didn't see me get _out_ , did you?"

"Yeah. Right. Just wasn't sure, with—It sounded like the symbiote took over there for a bit."

"It didn't _take over_ ," Venom said. "Eddie usually speaks the other's feelings into words because he's better with English. But the other has been choosing _those_ words for a long time. We wanted you to hear its own words."

"Oh."

"We don't think you would have respected its message if it wasn't shaped like a 'person' and talking like a 'person' when it told you that." Venom held up their hands high enough that Spider-Man could see over their shoulders as they did the finger quotes.

Spider-Man winced. "Oh."

At last, they reached a heavy airtight door that Venom easily dispatched. Behind it was the expected room with hundreds of slimes in jars. (The jars were unexpectedly purple.)

Venom stopped in front of the nearest jar, hand hovering as close to the glass as they could get without being pushed back by the supersonic field surrounding the jar. The symbiote pressed up to the glass.

Spider-Man passed them, looking around for the controls. "You know," he said, "we can't really just... _let them loose_ on Earth. I mean, there's hundreds of symbiotes here, at least. We'd be dealing with a major invasive species."

Venom turned to glare at Spider-Man, waiting to see whether his follow-up was going to make that lede better or a whole lot of worse.

"So, uh, I guess... once we herd them all out of here, we're gonna have to find someone to taxi them home," Spider-Man said. "Right? Unless there's a Klyntar Uber I haven't heard about."

 _Taxied home_ instead of _shipped home_. It was a step in the right direction.

“We’ll worry about that once they’re free.” Venom left the jar—"We'll be back for you soon"—and began searching for the controls with Spider-Man.

**Author's Note:**

> Original post available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/190974317852/personhood). Comments/reblogs there are very welcome (as are comments here)!


End file.
